The plastic fob was cold against Alejandro’s sweaty palm.
Its metallic ring pinched the skin between his knuckles.
On the main building’s digital clock, the red numbers shifted to 10:14 AM.
Almost four hours until the tactical session.
His feet inside his damp boots felt like two blocks of soaked firewood.
He walked toward the main gatehouse.
The mud on his studs was drying into a hard, crusty gray shell.
Miller was inside the glass booth.
A small portable radio was tuned to a mid-morning talk show where two men argued about roadworks on the M6.
The heater hummed, blowing out a faint smell of burnt dust and old tea bags.
Alejandro knocked twice on the glass with his knuckles.
Miller slid the pane open four inches.
A draft of hot air escaped into the cold drizzling rain.
He looked at the plastic lanyard in Alejandro’s hand, then down at the duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
“Davies gave you the blue one, then,” Miller said, reaching for a clipboard without looking up.
“Means you can use the canteen entrance and the lower changing rooms.
Doesn’t mean you can sleep in the foyer.”
“I need to charge my phone,” Alejandro said.
His voice was raspy.
The back of his throat felt raw from swallows of cold rain during the match.
“Ten minutes.”
Miller pointed a blunt thumb toward the corner outside the gatehouse.
A gray outdoor socket sat behind a cracked plastic moisture cover.
“Canteen’s open till eleven.
Plug it in by the vending machine near the boot rack.
But don’t sit on the radiator.
The facility guy gets twitchy about people leaning on the pipework.”
Alejandro stood there for a second.
He waited to see if Miller would offer a spare cable or point him toward warm porridge.
Miller just turned a knob on his radio.
A commercial for carpet fitting began to play.
The academy canteen smelled of boiled oats and cheap floor detergent.
Alejandro found the outlet behind a stack of folded plastic chairs near the side exit.
He pulled his charger from the side pocket of his duffel bag.
The white wire was frayed near the connector, exposing a tiny coil of copper thread.
He had to wedge a folded piece of cardboard from an old biscuit wrapper under the port to keep the connection live.
A small battery icon blinked onto the black screen.
Four percent.
Alejandro sat down on the linoleum floor with his back against the brick wall.
He pulled his knees up toward his chest.
His stomach didn’t ache anymore.
It had passed into a dull, numb emptiness that made his ears ring whenever he stood up too fast.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his remaining money: a silver twenty-pence piece and a dirty ten-pence coin.
A cup of black tea from the machine cost eighty pence.
He put the coins back in his pocket.
By 11:05 AM, the battery bar showed fourteen percent.
Alejandro pressed the power button.
The screen flickered, showing the black-and-gold boot logo before shifting to the home grid.
Almost instantly, the device began to vibrate violently in his palm.
It buzzed against the hard linoleum three, four, five times in rapid succession.
Sixteen missed calls.
Every single one from the same unlisted London number.
Then the text notifications stacked up across the top of the display:
David (07:12 AM): Where the hell are you?
Your uncle said you didn’t show up for the shift at the yard.
David (08:45 AM): Alejandro.
Pick up the bloody phone.
David (09:30 AM): The consultant from the clinic called this morning.
The blood panel results came back early.
David (09:31 AM): We need to sign the secondary authorization forms for the south wing transfer by two o’clock or they drop her down the waiting list again.
David (09:31 AM): I can’t sign this alone without the co-signature from your mom’s account.
Where are you?
David (10:02 AM): I know what you’re doing.
You think you’re going to play football while I’m dealing with the hospital bills by myself?
David (10:03 AM): Call me back right now or don’t bother coming back to Bermondsey.
Alejandro read the last message twice.
His thumb hovered over the screen, the grease from his fingers smudging the glass over his father’s name.
The hospital in Lewisham had been pushing for the transfer since Thursday.
But the private care unit required a three-hundred-pound deposit just to hold the bed.
David didn’t have three hundred pounds.
Alejandro’s total earnings from his three weeks with Solihull’s semi-pro reserves came to ninety pounds.
Most of that was already gone—spent on train tickets up north and two pairs of secondhand studs.
A shadow fell across his legs.
A young kit manager wearing an Aston Villa tracksuit stopped beside the stack of plastic chairs.
He was holding a heavy hamper full of dirty towels.
He looked at Alejandro’s damp Solihull training top, then at the frayed charger plugged into the wall.
“Canteen’s closing for clean-down mate,” the kit manager said, kicking the doorstop out with the toe of his trainer.
“You need to clear out until twelve-thirty.”
Alejandro didn’t look up immediately.
“Is there a landline in the office?”
“For players?
No chance,” the guy said, hauling the hamper onto his hip.
“Staff only.
Use the payphone down by the roundabout near the bus stop if you’ve got change.”
Alejandro unplugged the charger.
The battery stood at nineteen percent.
Back in the corridor, the chill of the unheated hallway hit his damp neck.
If he dialed his father now, the conversation would take at least ten minutes.
David would demand he take the next train from Birmingham New Street back to London.
If he refused, David would freeze the shared emergency bank card.
The card had twelve pounds left on it.
Just enough for a bus ticket back south if everything failed here today.
Twelve pounds.
One train ticket home.
If he didn’t call, the hospital transfer would be delayed another week.
His mother would stay in the ward with the broken radiator and the leaking ceiling.
Alejandro tapped his father’s number into the keypad.
His thumb rested over the green call icon.
A group of Villa U21 players walked past him down the hall.
Their clean plastic studs clicked loudly against the concrete floor.
They were laughing about a clip on someone’s phone.
They completely ignored Alejandro standing by the wall in his wet kit.
Alejandro locked the screen.
The display went dark.
It reflected his own pale face and the dark circles under his eyes.
He slipped the phone into his bag and zipped it tight.
He wasn’t going back to London today.
Not without something signed on paper.
Down in the lower changing rooms, the air smelled of winter green ointment and damp leather.
In the corner of the small changing area allocated for trialists, he found a metal bench near an old wall heater.
It was barely lukewarm.
He unlaced his boots and pulled off his wet socks.
He pressed his thumb into the side of his big toe.
He watched the skin stay white for three seconds before the faint pink color crept back.
He rubbed his feet with a dry corner of his jersey until the skin turned a blotchy, raw red.
Then he pulled his boots back on without socks.
He tied the laces twice as tight to make up for the missing layer of wool.
At 1:45 PM, Alejandro walked back out onto Pitch 3.
The rain had stopped.
In its place, a low, biting wind cut straight through the thin fabric of his training shirt.
The grass was churned into dark brown slush along the left touchline where he had spent eighty minutes earlier that morning.
Sean Davies was already there, standing beside a tactical board mounted on an aluminum tripod.
Beside him stood a shorter man in a black windbreaker holding a clipboard with a heavy steel clip—Corrigan’s chief scout.
Davies didn’t look up as Alejandro approached the line.
He was pinning red and blue magnetic markers onto a printed layout of the penalty box.
“We’re running eleven-on-eleven set-piece scenarios,” Davies said abruptly.
He placed a blue marker on the edge of the six-yard box.
“Jesse, you’re taking the defensive wall positions for the opposition group.
First team’s set-piece coach wants to see if you can hold your mark without jumping early.”
The scout with the clipboard glanced at Alejandro’s feet—at the sockless ankles sticking out of his mud-splattered boots.
He made a small tick in the corner of his paper.
Alejandro stepped onto the wet turf.
His boots sank two inches into the soft mud.
His hamstring gave a tiny, sharp twinge as he set his weight onto his left leg.
He didn’t adjust his stance.
He stood on the edge of the box, waiting for the first whistle.